


dancing like a medicine man

by placeless



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorder, please don't do this to yourself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4341986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placeless/pseuds/placeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>patrick is unhappy with his body. he deals with that problem in a less than healthy way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Could Be Happy

**Author's Note:**

> i realise that patrick is really in no way fat, but i mean, he had to have gone through weight issues in the past. haven't we all?

staring in the mirror disgusts him. he bites his lip, poking the ever-growing patch of fat protruding from his stomach, wanting to gag. it’s _grotesque._

his thoughts go back to the past, when he was skinny. oh, he was thin. it was so nice. everything was so nice. but now, he’s resorted to this — he’s gone back to the same, fat patrick. fat patrick from ’08. and it makes him want to puke.

speaking of puking, he kneels in front of the toilet. the old habit comes back so naturally — sticking fingers down his throat, throwing up until he can’t anymore. it’s so _easy._ it’s so _simple._

he wants to do it everyday.

/

andy sends him a concerned look the next day, when he declines breakfast.

“are you sure?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing. “it’ll give you energy.”

but he shakes his head and turns away, sucking on a bottle of water instead. pete enters then, with a box of poptarts, and this insane grin on his face. they’re s’mores flavoured. those were always his favourite.

he’s past that now, though. as he stares at the box, he hopes that another one of them will never touch his lips again.


	2. Sweat It Out, Shut Your Mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am back! after one day. amazing.
> 
> anyway, like i said last chapter, if you are contemplating bulimia or anorexia or any eating disorder then please, it's just not worth it. trust me, okay? and if you have an eating disorder, seek out help - continuing will only end in disaster.
> 
> other than that, enjoy?

the week passes by slowly. his throat burns and his stomach aches almost continuously, but he knows that this is part of the process. he loses five pounds, which is okay, but not enough. he needs to lose more.

skipping breakfast and dinner and everything in between doesn’t go unnoticed by pete. of course it doesn’t. pete’s not as oblivious as patrick seems to think he is.

he inches up to him one night after a show, where he’s practically passed out on a sofa, dizzy. “pat,” he whispers, “pat, are you sick?” looking at him through hazy eyes, he shakes his head. pete frowns, “but you haven’t been eating.”

biting his lip, he shuts his eyes, pretending to be asleep. pete nestles his head in his shoulder after that, murmuring one of _panic!’s_ old lyrics, “things have changed for _us_ , and that’s okay…”

/

they’re all sitting on the bus, laughing at a stupid movie that’s on the television. “you guys hungry?” pete asks suddenly, pointedly looking at patrick. “wanna order pizza? we haven’t had it in awhile.”

 _he knows_ , moans the younger man’s mind, _he knows, and now he’s going to force me to eat._

“yeah, sure,” andy says, and the next thing patrick knows they’re all ordering pizza.

twenty minutes later, he stares at the slice of pepperoni in his hand, feeling sick. he remembers ryan ross, the basically sick boy from 2006, with his ribs and his stick-thin limbs.

and he doesn’t know why, but he wants to look like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my chapters are so short what am i doing i need to lengthen these


	3. In Your Head, They're Fighting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're contemplating anorexia or bulimia, please, please know this - it's not worth it. whatever problems you have with your weight, with the way you look - starving yourself will not help. in any way, shape, or form.
> 
> also, patrick stump is adorable and amazing and i really do hope that he never had to/has to go through this.

his weight goes down. _slowly._ too slowly for his liking.

it’s been two weeks, and he’s lost a total of seven pounds. _seven pounds._ he's only lost _two_ pounds in the past week.

he needs to lose more and weigh less. _more, less, more, less, more, less…_

/

sometimes, when he looks in the mirror, he imagines that he’s lost more than he actually has. he imagines that the bulk that’s gathered at his stomach isn’t there anymore — that you can see his ribs and put a hand around one thigh. but that’s not true. of course it’s not.

pete doesn’t say anything, but eventually he will. they all will. and then he’ll be taken to a hospital and put on a special diet and that’s _not what he wants._

so he pretends to eat — he chews it and keeps it in his mouth, spitting it out the second nobody’s looking. and pete stops sending him the looks — the heartbreaking, lost puppy looks that he’s perfected over the past couple of years, and andy stops forcing those ridiculous vegan health bars into his hands, and everything’s fine.

well, that’s what patrick and everybody else comes to believe.

/

he passes out on stage four days later. the last thing he hears are the terrified screams of the people in the audience as he falls, eyes shutting.


	4. People Look The Way That They Please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you are considering anorexia or bulimia, please realise that, in the end, it's not worth it. the hospitals, rehab, stomach pains, burning throat -- none of that is worth weighing a little less.

when he wakes up, the beeping of an ekg is all he hears. there are voices — voices that he feel should be familiar — but they’re all mumbled, speech slurring together.

he blinks, staring at the bleach-white ceiling in front of him. he can tell that he’s in a hospital, of course. that’s generally where you’re taken when you pass out on a stage, in front of hundreds of people.

“mr. stump?” a masculine voice asks, and he snaps out of his voice, turning his head slightly to the right and seeing a male doctor standing there. “mr. stump, can you hear me?”

his voice fails him when he opens his mouth, so he just nods slightly. the doctor turns to the people in the room and says, “he should be fine. we’ve hooked him up to an iv which gives him nutrients, but he should still eat once he goes home.”

and then he’s gone, leaving patrick alone with whoever else is in the room. he stares up at the ceiling again, mentally tracking the seconds that go by, when pete (who he guesses was in the room the whole time) speaks up, voice small, “why, pat?”

he bites his lip. that’s the last question he wants to be asked right now because he really doesn’t know _‘why’._ he weighs too much is the simple explanation, but there’s something that goes deeper than that — a sick obsession with looking like a runway model; a craving for the empty feeling in his stomach and the burning in his throat; a certain liking towards the worried looks and the nights spent awake in pain.

so he croaks, “i don’t know,” and turns over, shutting his eyes and hoping they leave him alone.

they do.

/

patrick doesn’t know what _home_ is anymore. he’s spent too many days on the road, sleeping in various buses and hotels that he can’t keep track of. there is no _home_ for him.

but still, as they exit the hospital, his mom says, “i’m taking you home.”

she takes him to his _house,_ but not his _home._ it’s a rather spacious apartment with windows everywhere that he wants to shield with pitch black curtains. she watches him sit down at the table before going to make a dinner of spaghetti with tomato sauce, which, in the past, was always one of patrick’s favourites.

not anymore, though.

he stares emptily at the plate, feeling queasy just by looking at it. it used to be that the thought of _not_ eating made him sick, but now it’s the other way around.

“elisa should be coming back any day now,” his mom murmurs from the other side of the table, “she has declan with her. won’t it be wonderful to see declan?”

patrick thinks of his son — his small, adorable son — and his wife — his _beautiful_ wife — that he hasn’t seen in weeks, _months_ even, and smiles slightly. the thought of them makes him cheer up, but then he frowns as he thinks of what elisa’s reaction will be.

she’ll probably freak out and try to feed him more, but he doesn’t think that he can do that. no, he _knows_ that he can’t do that. and that thought just makes him feel even more sick.

he knows that his mom knows of his predicament. that he really, _really_ doesn’t want to eat. but still, she asks with worry in her tone, “won’t you eat, honey?”

no, he won’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was such a choppy chapter i'm so sorry oh my god.


	5. God Knows We're Lonely Souls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! i'm back after, like, a long time. how are you guys?
> 
> if you're contemplating anorexia/bulimia, please... it's not worth it. none of it is worth it. you may get skinnier, yeah, but in the end you could be thrown into a hospital or even die. starvation shouldn't be a personal choice.
> 
> also, patrick stump is a cinnamon roll and he's amazing and he has like five lung so i wish no harm upon him. thank you.

patrick starts eating again, and he watches as the pounds slowly creep back onto him like a disgusting parasite. elisa comes back home and she’s as loving as she’s always been, but he doesn’t want that. he wants her to tell him that he’s fat, that’s he’s disgusting — at least then he’d get some sort of motive other than his own self-hate.

one day, as he stares into the mirror, rolls of fat making him want to puke, he decides that he can’t live like this. he can’t live eating food that makes him feel sick and changing into clothes that make him feel like a whale. biting his lip, he decides that he has to continue starving himself. there’s no other way.

and so he does, but the fat doesn’t leave. it stays there, hanging off his stomach and arms and legs and _everything._ he starts exercising everyday — first ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty, and up and up and up.

elisa notices the way he acts around food, and of course she knows what’s going on through his mind. but she doesn’t say anything, save for the occasional, “are you sure you’re okay?”

the pounds inch off over time and he almost cries of relief. but it’s not enough. none of it will ever be enough.


	6. Shivers Down Your Spine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you want to starve yourself - don't.

when they go back on tour, pete watches patrick like a hawk. it bothers him sometimes — his friend’s intrusive eyes, always making sure he eats enough and isn’t about to pass out at any given moment. patrick kind of wants to punch pete in the face.

on stage, he’s energetic. he has to be. but afterwards, he’s exhausted, with splotches of blue and black dancing in front of his eyes. he doesn’t black out, though. he just tends to sleep a lot more than usual.

the gnawing pain at the back of his throat hurts like someone suffocating him, and some days he wishes that it was just that. that someone was trying to choke him and that he could go to sleep, never to wake up again.

pete was always the suicidal one in the band in the past, but maybe now he’s fulfilled that role.


	7. a child made of glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't starve yourself. please.

one day at a signing, this thin girl approaches them. she’s hooked arm-in-arm with a rather muscular guy, latching onto him like he’s her life source. later, pete says that he might as well be.

she explains to them that her life’s been taken over by anorexia — that she never thought she could be perfect. but now she’s on the road to recovery and it’s all thanks to their music.

patrick wants to ask her why she’d want to look any different. why she’d want to be _fat_ when she’s so _thin._

why she’d want to recover when, now, her body is perfect.

/

it’s only september and the last of the dog days have just blown by, but patrick is still freezing. around him, andy, joe, and pete all wear t-shirts. the sun is high in the sky, warming the land beneath. but patrick has a scarf wrapped tightly around his thin neck, and his hands are stuffed into his pockets.

he knows that his bandmates are concerned. they all have been since the day he passed out on stage. but he keeps telling them that’s he’s _fine,_ and that his diet is perfectly healthy. they don’t believe him, of course. but he knows that they will once he’s skinny.

they have to.


End file.
